1. Origin of the Invention
The invention described herein was made pursuant to a Department of Navy contract number N00024-79-C-4026 and may be manufactured and used by or for the U.S. Government for governmental purposes without any payment of royalties thereon or therefor.
2. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to soldering tools, and more specifically, to devices for enhancing the safety of soldering tools.
3. The Prior Art
Many improvements have been incorporated into soldering devices which facilitate the soldering process. These include heat sensing elements to control temperatures up to 850.degree., interchangeable soldering tips, integrated soldering stations, and methods to increase production time by speeding up the heatup time of a soldering iron. However, few attempts have been made to improve the safety of soldering equipment. Safety concerns such as an operator coming into contact with an exposed solder iron tip or a fire resulting from an exposed solder iron still exist. FIGS. 1a and 1b illustrate representative soldering irons currently on the market. These irons have a handle 10, a heated cartridge 20 and a hot tip 30. As indicated by brackets A and B in FIGS. 1a and 1b, although only about two percent of the solder iron is used to heat the solder, forty to fifty percent of a typical solder iron consists of exposed metal at temperatures between 500.degree. and 800.degree..
In air vacuum systems presently on the market, such as the Fumex.RTM. product line, smoke and gases are eliminated from the working area using a smoke vacuum tube which is approximately the same diameter as, and runs parallel to, the soldering tip. However, this device has several disadvantages: 1) the smoke and gases may not be collected into the tube if the vacuum tube is not directly positioned above the soldering tip, 2) if the vacuum tube is directly above the soldering tip, the user's view of the immediate solder area is blocked, 3) the vacuum tube will hinder soldering in tight working spaces since it effectively increases the diameter of the iron by a factor of at least two, and 4) because the tube is in such close vicinity to the solder iron tip and takes in hot smoke and gases, the metallic vacuum tube heats up to temperatures near that of the iron's tip which effectively doubles the high temperature hazards of the solder iron.
Another type of fume exhausting soldering iron, which alleviates some of these disadvantages, is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,184,980 to F.S.C. Smith. In the Smith patent, the fume conducting means includes a cylindrical skirt having its forward end flared outward. The flared end does not extend over the end of the tip. However, the flared end may limit the user's view of the immediate solder area and the heating problems associated with a metallic vacuum tube so close to the hot tip are still present, as is evident from the inclusion of a heat insulating sleeve surrounding the heat member of the tip in order to prevent any heat transmitted to the fume exhausting means from reaching the handle.